Freelance Writing: The Beginner's Guide to Writing Online

Freelance writing is yet another opportunity created by the Internet and it has indeed opened up a new window of potential for people with writing skills. One important thing about writing is that it can be indulged by people involved in many other professions. This is the reason for the growth of freelance writers, because people who love to write will do so even while pursuing other professions and jobs.

How can someone become a freelance writer? The answer to this lies in the new phenomena of the Internet and cyberspace that has grown to such a tremendous size in a matter of a few short years, and consists of billions of pages of content about every imaginable subject. The number of pages keeps on growing every moment, and this content is how the major search engines decide which websites should be shown when users do a search for any particular subject. As you can imagine, all of this need for content has created great demand for writers to fill the ever-growing content pages on the web.

Freelance Writing Online Guide
What are the qualifications needed to take up freelance writing? You will be pleasantly surprised to learn that there are no special qualifications needed to be a writer except the ability to write grammatically error free articles in a simple language that people understand easily and enjoy reading. You must realize that people use the Internet for getting diverse information from technology reviews to medical symptoms and on to the latest fashion styles; there is room for writers who are well versed in many different things to write on the Internet. Do you know how to sew, cook, dance or play music?

You can write your own blog or submit work to other sites for publication. Do you want to share tips on troubleshooting the PC or TV? There are thousands of specialized subjects for which people might search online, and they are simply looking for accurate information on these subjects, and not high sounding literary pieces. If you have some interesting and useful topics which can be shared with others, then you are qualified to work as a writer.

Where can a freelance writer find work online? Since there is a great demand for freelance writers a system is already in place that caters to this growing demand. There are companies that take bulk content creation work and distribute the work to several smaller outfits and individual writers. These firms will advertise freelance writing jobs on the net and encourage both beginning and experienced writers to apply. You can send a few samples of your work along with your application, and if your writing is good there is no doubt you will get the opportunity to prove yourself. The compensation depends on your writing skills, your experience, and your reputation; if you do a good job for your clients you will soon get better offers as your skills improve and you become well known and respected.

In order to climb up the ladder in freelance work, several steps help in the long run. The first and the foremost of these steps are to improve your style and depth of the content. To achieve this, the best way is to read! Reading, slowly but surely, helps you to become a good writer in many ways. Apart from building an impressive vocabulary and improving your style, you will also learn by studying the approach that famous writers make to create interest and present the subject. You want your work to be compelling and make an impression on the reader. You may be writing about a routine topic, but you can keep the reader’s attention by presenting the topic well, and that is how you get the higher paying jobs.

Success Tips for Beginning Writers and Would-Be Authors

AS AN AUTHOR with high visibility in the home-business community, I am often asked for advice on how to get started as a professional writer, and how to get a first book published when you're an unknown writer. This report tells how I got started and offers practical tips for success.

Read for Success
I've always thought it curious that I published a magazine called Artisan Crafts for five years back in the 1970s and never once thought of myself as a "writer." Although I wrote many articles and edited all the reader contributions, in those days I saw myself as merely an editor. I didn't get serious about writing until a few months after I ceased publication of the magazine in 1976, and only then because my circumstances had changed. Suddenly without anything challenging to do, I heard or read something that prompted me to go to the library and pick up a couple of books on writing.

I didn't know it at the time, but one of the three books I selected turned out to be a classic, and one of the best books any beginning writer could hope to read. It was On Writing Well—The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser (now in its 30th anniversary Edition).

Zinsser's book changed my life because it changed the way I thought about myself and educated me as to what a "good writer" actually was.

I used to believe that good writers had to use big words and write long sentences, like the flowery book reviewers in the newspaper. Not true! "Use short words and short sentences," Zinsser advised, "and write about what you know." By the time I finished his book, I knew I could be a professional writer if I chose to be one.

There are hundreds of how-to books for writers, yet very few writers who read these books ever figure out how to earn a living from their craft. The problem with most writers, I believe, is that they choose what they want to write about rather than what editors and publishers want to buy. Clearly, failure to heed the advice of seasoned pros is a great way to decrease your chances for success. I believe I have been able to earn a living from writing only because I decided at the beginning to be as professional a writer as possible, and then I methodically applied all the things I learned in dozens of books and magazines on how to write well and be paid accordingly.


Another extremely helpful book, which I discovered in the mid-1980s when I found myself getting interested in self-publishing, was How to Get Happily Published—A Complete and Candid Guide by Judith Appelbaum (and a co-author whose name disappeared from later editions).

The end of this book so touched my heart that I was prompted to write the one and only fan letter I've ever written to an author.

I've never forgotten these words in the reply I got: "We can live without letters like yours, but not as well." That pretty much sums up how I've always felt about my fan mail, too.

I read this particular book well into the night while my husband snored away, oblivious to the fact that his life was about to change because of what his wife was reading in a book. This book was such an encouragement because it gave me a pat on the back at a time when I needed it most. It also made me realize my true potential as both a writer and self-publisher. Best of all, this book was a virtual roadmap to success. If you're an aspiring writer or would-author, I believe this book will do the same for you. I can't recommend it highly enough.

There are many other fine books for writers, of course, and a search on Amazon will turn them up. In your desire to learn, be sure to read writer's magazines, too. One of the first things I did when I decided to become a professional writer was subscribe to Writer's Digest magazine and order five years' worth of back issues. What an incredibly helpful magazine for both beginners and seasoned pros! I had no idea then that I would someday be working with the folks who own Writer's Digest. They acquired the publishing rights to one edition of my Homemade Money book before it found a permanent home with M. Evans & Co.

The Real Secret to Good Writing
From experience I've learned that average writers become good writers only with considerable effort and attention to detail. And good writers don't just write, they become specialists in the art of rewriting, which, in my opinion, is the real secret to good writing.

When I was writing my first book, I used to read issues of Writer's Digest in the evening, and my husband would often hear me mutter, "Oh, no! I'm doing it all wrong." Next morning, I'd go back to my book-in-progress and start rewriting, correcting my bad writing and attempting to avoid other common errors beginning writers always make. I literally rewrote my first book a dozen times and, by the time it was finished, I felt like I'd taken a college course in writing.

TIP: Test the quality of your work by reading it aloud. Whenever you stumble, you can be sure some reader will stumble, too. Make whatever changes are necessary to make your copy flow.

Control Your Ego
My first book, Creative Cash, was published almost word for word as I wrote it, and I was pretty proud of myself when it began to get rave reviews and went on to sell more than 100,000 copies. Twenty years later, however, when I reread that book with an eye to doing a sixth edition for a new publisher, I was embarrassed to find that my writing wasn't nearly as good as I thought it was, and my organization of material was not good at all. In the end, I simply wrote a brand new book, giving it a new subtitle in the process.

In my defense, I was writing on a typewriter in the 1970s, which made it much more difficult to reorganize content once it had been typed. Having word processing power greatly improved my ability to write well because it's so easy to make changes and move blocks of text from place to place right up to the last minute before submitting a manuscript to a publisher.

The real point I want to make here, however, is that writers (myself included) tend to let their egos get the best of them as soon as they have been published, and that's a big mistake. Writing, like woodworking, or growing roses, or designing Web sites, is both an art and craft that must be continually practiced, honed, and improved for maximum success. The most successful writers are never satisfied that they are as good as they can be, but are always striving to become better. I've often related to something Samuel Johnson once wrote:

"Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage you think is particularly fine, strike it out."

Tips From Other Great Writers
The most successful writers also write about things they know. I like this quote from Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, one of my favorite fiction writers:

"Search your own life for the story only you can tell. The best thing about writing from life is that you can be sure of using original material. And no research is needed beyond the time you spend looking deep inside your own heart."

Closing on a humorous note, also consider this tip from Don Marquis:
"If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves."

What is Good Writing?

Good writing. More precisely, a piece of writing or multiple pieces of writing which have been labelled with the quality of goodness. Everyone strives to have their writing become, through hard work, good writing. Good writing is a great thing, a thing to strive for.
But what is it, really?

Why is that we don’t have a single complete definition of what exactly good writing means?

Is it because good writing is subjective? After all, for one person, a piece of writing may be good. But that same piece of writing could be pathetic for a different reader. There lies the problem. Any definition of good writing won’t hold water for a second if it’s based on the writer’s own opinion. One could say, “good writing is writing which contains so-and-so”, and then a reader with different likes / dislikes will say: “What? Those qualities worsen a piece of writing instead of the other way around…”

How can anyone define good writing when people are not really thinking of good writing as such but good writing for them (a substantial difference) and when people are thinking of effective writing and not good writing?

Takeaway: let’s forget “good writing” for a moment. Consider a different concept, effective writing. Why? Because that can be measured. And the measurement leads to comparison in terms of degrees. The most effective writing turns out to be irresistible writing. Irresistible writing, in the proper context, leads to magnetic, award-winning, profit-making and productive writing.
With that in mind, let’s move on to the qualities of good writing — ahem, I mean effective writing…

The qualities of effective writing

Effective writing contains:

• Writing which is to-the-point. I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating again. Don’t write words which mean nothing. Don’t needlessly make a piece of writing longer just because it looks more professional. Don’t go overboard with adjectives and adverbs, particularly when strong verbs do the job better. Use active voice instead of passive voice, unless you have a legitimate reason for using passive voice (action being more important instead of the doer). Don’t neglect grammar, sentence construction, punctuation, spelling and the other nuts-and-bolts. Don’t waffle around explaining the same point again and again. Trust the intelligence of your readers — but only up to a certain point.

• Writing which is written for an ideal reader. There is no such thing such as the ideal reader in reality, because certain readers will be ideal for some parts of your writing and others will be ideal for other parts. But you get the idea. Don’t write for yourself. Write for the reader. Effective writing is not written for the writer’s pride. It is written to solve readers’ problems, to educate them, to attract them, to make them perform the desired action. For this, writing for an imaginary ideal reader is the best solution. Go into details. Find about real prospective readers and their situations. Done that? Good. Now base your writing on what you have learned, keeping a reader-centric approach.

• Writing which uses elements of writing which its readers like. Maybe your readers don’t like an informal voice and figures of speech. Then, it’s pointless to fill up your writing with these elements and hope these don’t bother your readers. Likewise, it’s equally insensible to write jargon, legal language and other technical speak to a readership of teenagers.

• Writing which goes in-depth about the readers’ issues. The readers these days are not interested in superficial solutions to their problems. According to readers, today the world is infused by people who are completely out of sync with how reality is, and who instead pat themselves on the back after publishing shallow solutions. 300-word cookie-cutter, abnormally short novels with no meat in them, little or no research made before writing… all this leads to writing with no depth. If you want to go in-depth, you have to work harder. Research more. Find out more things. Then start writing your solutions.

• Writing which appeals to the reader’s rationality and emotions both. What, rationality and emotions both? These two things are mutually exclusive aren’t they? Not necessarily. A well-written piece of writing will appeal to the reader’s rationality and his/her emotions simultaneously. Think of the features and benefits approach. Features are necessary because without them you cannot have benefits. But without benefits features are useless, just being bullet points on a page. How to mix your writing to appeal both reason and emotion? Use a combination of opposite strategies such as facts and figures (reason) and stories (emotion). And so on. Takeaway: don’t neglect any part of your prospective reader’s personality.

• Writing which is logical and follows structure. If you don’t have structure, if you don’t follow logic, you won’t take your reader on a train (psychologically) which ends with your desired destination. Consider a common piece of copywriting, a sales letter or pitch. It follows logic and structure. First the headline, then the introduction, some testimonials, some more benefits, and then all the way down to the buy now button. Similarly, it applies logic to answer questions before the reader has the chance to ask them. End result: the reader buys the product, and that piece of writing is now classified in the effective writing category.

• Writing which is the right sort of humble. Effective writing is not arrogant. It doesn’t make wild marketing claims, it doesn’t boast of what it can’t do, but instead it proclaims its USP in a humble manner. Arrogant writing which scorns the reader will never be effective (beyond a certain point). Conversely, too humble writing will fail to get its point across. Balance. That’s what makes writing effective.

How to make a piece of writing effective

Start by incorporating these qualities in your piece, for one. I don’t mean all of these qualities without due considerations of the specialized needs of your readers. You could end up writing things which fulfill all these requirements and yet it’s not effective at all. Balance. Again balance. Try to find the appropriate balance which works best for you.

Effective writing comparison 

 

Although good writing can’t be objectively compared, effective writing can because it can be measured. As in, how effective is it? Is this piece of writing more effective than that one? Some books are best-sellers. Meaning they’re more effective than other books in their class. So how do we make our writing more effective? So simple. More and more clarity. Study the effective ones, study how they got their respective desired actions from the readers, do your research… and then, start the long, long process of improving your somewhat effective (or not effective at all) writing to make it, well, more effective, more irresistible.

Effective writing leads to magnetic writing

 

Readers know how fond I am of using the term of magnetic writing. Magnetic writing is the end point of effective writing. It is what leads to recognition, awards and profit. Want to learn how to get to that end point? Learn it along with me in the magnetic writing articles.

What’s good writing in this context?

 

Good writing in this particular context, is merely highly effective writing. Conclusion for the ultimate definition of good writing:

Good writing is what good writing does.

Twelve Tips for Authors

One of the most critical skills for academic psychologists is writing the empirical journal article. Yes, other forms of communication (review articles, theory articles, book chapters, books) are important, but the empirical journal article reporting two or more studies or experiments is the most common form of communication. Early in one’s career, publishing a steady series of journal articles is how one builds a reputation.

Many sources exist to help writers craft journal articles, including whole books like Robert Sternberg’s The Psychologist’s Companion: A Guide to Writing for Students and Psychologists (Cambridge, 2003). In addition, Daryl Bem provides a masterful chapter on “Writing the empirical journal article” in The Compleat Academic (APA Press, 2004). The following tips only skim the surface of this subject.

Most of us work hard at our writing, so it can be depressing to realize that only a small fraction of your target audience will ever read your pithy words. Just focusing on APS publications, a huge number of articles are published every year. For 2006, 270 articles were published in the four APS journals, and they consumed 1,880 pages. How many of these articles did you read? Then there are the many thousands of articles and pages in APA journals, Elsevier journals, Psychology Press/Erlbaum journals, Wiley-Blackwell journals, Psychonomic Society journals, and so on.

Of course, all four APS journals go to the entire membership, nearly 18,000 people (as well as to libraries, of course — the journals are also available online through libraries). So, with APS journals, your paper’s existence might be noted by many people, even if the number of careful readers of the paper may not number more than 200 in the year after it is published (that is just a guess, of course). Most people skim, looking at titles and abstracts, glancing at figures and maybe references. The first couple of paragraphs of the general discussion represent another place to get the nub of the paper. If the paper is really (closely) in your area of interest (or if it looks too interesting to pass up), you might read it carefully.

It is difficult to know what readership is for the typical article in even our most prestigious journals, and that is probably a good thing. One lucky aspect about publishing in archival journals is that an article will live for a long time and can be picked up by interested parties, especially in these days of broad Internet searches. Still, the trick is not just to publish an article, but to get people to read it and pay attention and, yes, cite it in their own work. To this end, 12 tips:

1. Tell a good story. Psychologists studying the narrative form tell us that humans are great storytellers. The narrative fits the human mind quite comfortably, and language probably developed in part for us to tell stories to each other. Try to make your journal article a compelling story. You are addressing an interesting problem or phenomenon, using theories developed to explain the issues. You have advanced hypotheses, developed methods to test them, provided results bearing on the issues, and then interpreted the results in light of the theories and hypotheses. You reached an interesting conclusion, advancing knowledge. Experiments often attempt to solve a puzzle, and puzzles make for good stories. In sum, your article should have a strong story line. Provide an easily remembered take-home message. You should provide clear answers to the following two questions the reader will have: What has the paper told me that I did not know before? And why is this news important?

2. Don’t have too many subplots. You may wish to tell some subsidiary stories in addition to your main plot, because your data set may permit you to address other points. However, do not have too many. I learned this lesson in graduate school. One of my fellow students conducted a series of experiments and wrote them up for his mentor (Endel Tulving) to consider for a joint publication. The student wrote a paper that had nine main points based on several experiments. Tulving handed it back saying a paper could never have more than three main points, because readers would throw up their hands and not bother with the whole thing. However, the student said that all nine were equally important and had to be included. They went back and forth for a while, but the upshot was that the paper — which had interesting data — was never published. If you think a series of experiments has many stories to tell, break them into smaller chunks.

3. Create an outline. Before you begin writing, create an outline of your paper, especially for the introduction and general discussion. What points are critical for the introduction? What is the logic you are building for your research? The method is usually straightforward, with the schema provided. An outline is useful for the results if they are at all complicated. You need to consider the order of presentation. Should data be presented in tables, figures, or in the text? The general discussion needs a clear outline so it does not wander. Work especially hard in the first paragraph of the general discussion to summarize the primary findings of the paper. You need to summarize the key findings before discussing them, and many readers look to that paragraph for the news in your paper.

4. Provide a good title. Most readers skimming the table of contents online or in a journal will look at the title and the authors’ names and (if you are lucky) will read your abstract. There is nothing you can do about the names (no, you can’t add a famous psychologist long deceased), but you can control your title and your abstract. Titles come in many flavors, but four primary ones come to mind. A basic type is of the form “Effects of the independent variable on the dependent variable.” There is nothing wrong with this sort of title, and most of us have used it from time to time. However, these titles do not exactly leap out at the reader saying “read me now.” Another type of title provides a one-sentence abstract of what the paper found. From a 2006 issue of Psychonomic Bulletin & Review comes “People over 40 feel 20 percent younger than their age: Subjective age across the lifespan” by David Rubin and Dorthe Berntsen. Even without the subtitle, the primary part of the title conveys the essence of the story. Academics also love to use colons in their titles, as in this one. The colon helps to get your story across because you get to use more words. You can state the general topic before the colon and add to it afterward. Here is an interesting example from a recent Psychological Science article by Brad Bushman and several colleagues: “When God sanctions killing: Effect of scriptural violence on aggression.” With a title like that, it’s hard not to at least read the abstract, if not the whole paper.

Many psychologists cannot resist the clever title, but the boundary between clever and cloying is a fine one (and criteria differ among people). Jean Mandler and Nancy Johnson’s title, “Remembrance of things parsed: Story structure and recall,” was clever, fitted the paper, and invoked Proust’s book, which was (somewhat) relevant to the study. Bravo! However, many cute titles fall flat and can lead outsiders to wonder about our field. I urge authors to keep in mind how outrageous titles appear to university promotion and tenure committees composed of people outside our field (and to outsiders in general). Many people already believe that psychology is a joke. No need to reinforce this prejudice with silly titles.

There is no absolutely correct way to title a paper, but the point is that you should put a good deal of thought into the process. Seek opinions, as you would about the content of the paper, if you are uncertain.

5. Write an interesting and self-contained abstract. If your title does not bore readers, you may be lucky enough to get them to read your abstract. This is your big chance to entice them into your article. However, the number of words permitted for abstracts has become increasingly small over the years, at least for those journals that follow the APA Publication Manual. The current guideline is a mere 120 words.Of course, some journals do not follow the APA guidelines for abstracts, but you will probably still have fewer than 200 words to accomplish the abstract’s many purposes. You must state the problem or issue of interest, say something about the methods used, provide the independent and dependent variables (when appropriate), specify the results obtained, provide your theoretical conclusions, and then perhaps end with a pithy statement of What It All Means. Because writers need to pack so much into an abstract, careful writing and repeated revisions are required. Most researchers leave writing the abstract until after finishing the paper, which is good, but then often they do not seem to give it the serious attention needed to provide an informative summary of the paper. The abstract often appears to be an afterthought rather than one of the most critical parts of the paper. For example, I often skip from the title to the last sentence of the abstract to see what the punch line is. Many articles I read start with “The present results are discussed in light of current theories of the XXX phenomenon” or words to that effect. These are 14 wasted words, ones that could have been used to state a powerful conclusion.

6. Short is better (in general). This aphorism is true at every level throughout the paper. Academics are noted for their prolixity, even at the best of times. To attract readers, keep sections of your paper (and hence your whole paper) as brief as possible while at the same time covering the necessary elements. Sentences should not tax working memory. William Faulkner could get away with long, abstruse sentences because he was an artist. Although journal articles are a kind of art form, the prize is given to those who can write clearly, with insight and occasional wit. Similarly, paragraphs should not go on forever. Introductions should motivate the paper, appropriately citing critical prior contributions, but without going back to Aristotle. Keep the introduction for most empirical papers to eight or fewer pages. Similarly, authors often wander far afield in their general discussions, dilating on possible ramifications of their results into far-flung domains. Rein yourself in for journal articles and stick to the point. Keep it short and snappy whenever possible.

7. Don’t paralyze the reader with your results sections. To my mind, writers often lose their focus when reporting their results. The results section can be written using a format based on inferential statistics that makes for deadly dull reading. The inferential statistics used should not dictate the story told but rather should illuminate it. Beware the writer who starts off by saying, “The results were analyzed with a 6 × 4 × 2 analysis of variance with significant effects of this, that, and the other thing and three interactions.” The reader has to take in such statements, look at a table or figure, and then try to interpret the results on his or her own (often without even being told the direction of a significant effect).

In short, some authors choose to bring the inferential statistics to the foreground and relegate the descriptive statistics, the actual results of the research, to the background. A better strategy is for the author to make a story out of the descriptive statistics, telling what independent variables affected what dependent variables, and then provide F ratios (or other statistics) as supporting evidence that the effect cited in the prose is indeed significant. This strategy of telling the story based on descriptive statistics and keeping inferential statistics in a supporting role may not work in every paper — some papers really must be dictated by statistical treatment of the data — but it will work in most empirical papers.

8. Beware the curse of knowledge. The curse of knowledge afflicts most writers (and lecturers). Because you know so well what you want to say, you assume that your writing (which makes so much sense to you) will be readily understood by your readers. Often you will be wrong, because your writing does not spell out assumptions that may be obvious to you but not the reader. Usually, readers will not be steeped in your past work, the literature you know, and certainly not your innermost thoughts. I occasionally find this out when a reviewer, especially a good one who has clearly tried hard to comprehend my paper, fails to understand some point. Yet it was so clear to me when I was writing it! The best cure for the curse of knowledge is to get several people to read your paper before you submit it, with instructions to flag any places they find to be obscure or difficult.
Try to get the kinks out of your article before it is submitted. Don’t leave the job to reviewers, because if they find the paper difficult to understand, they probably won’t recommend publication. Related advice is that when you think your paper is completely finished and ready to submit, put it aside for a week or two and then read it again. Often you can be your own best critic when looking at the paper with fresh eyes. These points lead naturally to the next tip.

9. Revision is the key to effective writing. Writing an initial draft of an article is just the first step. Then comes the hard part: repeated revision. Work hard to make your writing clear. You will see that you have overwritten some sections, belaboring the obvious, whereas in other places you may have assumed too much knowledge and have to unpack your assumptions. One temptation after finishing a first draft is to think, “Well, this paper is not really there yet, but it is close enough. I’ll submit it and then really work hard on it after I get reviews.” This is a bad idea, and your reviews might be so crushing that you will not have a second chance at that journal. Work hard to make the paper as good as you possibly can before submission. Reviewers and editors do not want to read your first draft and garbled thoughts.

10. Find appropriate models. Often you will read a journal article that you think is terrific — beautifully crafted, interesting research, splendid treatment of methods and results, and a novel and important point. When you find those articles, make a note of them. Read other papers by the same person. What is it you like about the writing? What tips can you find that can improve your own writing? Early in my career, I noted several authors in my field who took great care in their writing and often produced impeccable articles. I tried to learn lessons by reading them and analyzing their writing styles.

11. Avoid excessive abbreviations and acronyms. Write in words, not in code. People in my field can interpret the following sentence, but most of you cannot. “The experiment examined RI in PAL using MFR and MMFR techniques with Hi-F and Lo-F word pairs.” For some papers, the reader is essentially asked to learn a code at the beginning of the paper and then use it to decode the rest of the paper, which is an annoying burden. Some very common abbreviations may be all right, but little space is saved by using them, and your prose is much more easily comprehended when you write in words.

12. Constantly work to improve your writing. Writing is a skill. Like squash or baseball or ice skating, you are never “there.” You can always be better. Tip 8 is one way to improve. Another way is to practice, practice, practice — especially if you can get feedback from colleagues and trusted critics. Paying close attention to (good) copyeditors can help too. A fourth way to improve your writing is to read books on writing well and glean what tips you can. One favorite is Strunk and White’s Elements of Style (either the 3rd or 4th edition), with its straightforward guidelines such as “Omit needless words.” Another great book is William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. For writing in psychology articles, there is the aforementioned book, The Psychologist’s Companion, by Sternberg. Of course, many similar books exist; I simply cite some of my favorites.